Inside a Trump campaign office in Phoenix, Arizona, various Trump signs cover the walls from floor to ceiling. On the wall next to the front doors, Trump and Vance “Make America Great Again” camping signs make an American flag. Five protesters from the Sunrise Movement sit in front of the wall holding a check made out to Donald Trump for a billion and one dollars with the memo “To buy you back from big oil”, signed “The youth”.
One of the five youths sitting on the campaign office floor was Amanda Thompson, a Boise State environmental studies major in her senior year.
Thompson and her fellow activists, Nate Scofield, Riya Kumar, Nick Koenig and Joy M. arrived at the campaign office around 11 a.m. on Sept. 23, 2024. They held a giant sign that read “Trump profits, Arizona burns”.
“We wanted to put it out there and have it be known that while Trump is profiting from big oil and oil initiatives, that Arizona is burning,” Thompson said. “Arizona has had record breaking heat for [a] hundred days in a row.”
People in Arizona have suffered third-degree burns by touching door knobs or pavement due to the unprecedented heat wave.
Thompson participated in the sit-in to call attention to the ever-looming environmental crisis the Earth is facing, one she said will only grow more dire under a Trump administration.
“I think the Trump agenda is radical and dangerous … The project 2025 stuff is scary and real, and he’s already cut back on so many environmental protection laws,” Thompson said. “It’s just so essential that he loses this election for the future of climate change. Otherwise, there is no future.”
When Thompson and her fellow protestors arrived, they handed over a check to those working the front desk, then sat next to the front doors in the lobby. According to a video taken by The Sunrise Movement, staff were instructed to call the police 43 seconds after the protestors arrived.
Both staff and fellow Trump supporters coming to the campaign office to pick up lawn signs or to visit the campaign headquarters “harassed” the protestors according to Thompson.
“They pretty much harassed us from the start, we were just sitting in singing songs and chanting, but they came up with a big speaker and tried to drown us out … They’re screaming into the speaker,” Thompson said. “Trump supporters coming into the office to get yard signs or whatever, and they’re screaming at us. one of them pushed one of our press team to the ground, taking their phones. I mean [a] lady tried [to] take our signs and threw them at us, and was yelling at us.”
19 minutes after the protestors arrived, responding police officers arrested them.
“It [was] pretty much like that … the whole 19 minutes we were in there, and it felt like an eternity,” Thompson said. “It was pretty scary.”
According to Thompson, the police took longer to arrest them because they had to call their superiors to consult them. The Phoenix Police Department has faced multiple lawsuits over civil rights violations and violence this year.
As an officer put Thompson in the back of their police car, someone filming asked Thompson, “What are you fighting for?”
“Climate justice for all,” Thompson replied.
After being arrested, Thompson was taken to multiple different holding facilities. Thompson described one of them as the classic holding cell with metal bars, a toilet and metal benches. Another, the Maricopa County Jail, Thompson described as similar to a DMV, with men and women on separate sides of the room.
“It was just that big waiting room, but everybody was in that waiting room. I thought it was just gonna be misdemeanors in that room, but a girl next to me was like ‘Yeah, we murdered somebody’ and I was like, ‘Oh, we’re just all in here together’. I was kind of shocked,” Thompson said.
Thompson claimed that while in jail, police officers would deliberately make a loud noise, such as slamming the doors, roughly every 20 minutes to prevent detainees from sleeping. Even without the police officers’ noise, the jail was far from quiet.
Thompson described detainees in solitary cells who banged on the walls and screamed. Thompson claims that the officers laughed at the detainees, as well as detainees who said they were going through withdrawal.
“They were actively denying people withdrawal medication. And it was super horrible to watch. There was a man on the ground, and he was like ‘Please. I need this’ … They laughed at him, and they said no. And he said something along the lines of, ‘Okay, I’m actively dying on the floor, and you’re not gonna do anything for me?’” Thompson said. “I can’t do anything for any of these people. They told us that [if] we talked to the men we’d get a higher sentence. I couldn’t even ask if they were okay, or anything like that. And so it’s pretty disheartening, because I felt like there’s literally nothing I could do.”
The Sunrise Movement calls events like the sit-in “actions”. The Sunrise Movement divides them into three categories: green team, yellow team and red team. Green team members participate in events where there is no chance an individual would get arrested. The yellow team means there is a possibility an individual could get arrested, and the red team means the participants plan on getting arrested.
The sit-in was classified as a red team action, which Thompson knew when she signed on. The Sunrise Movement prepared her with a lawyer and planned to fundraise for the protestors’ bail.
What Thompson wasn’t prepared for, was the environment of the jail or how long they would be held. Going into the sit-in, Thompson and the other Sunrise members expected to be held for six to seven hours. In the end, they spent over 30 hours in jail.
For Thompson, the sit-in was her first big action of civil disobedience, but she’s always been invested in the climate.
“This is my first Sunrise event, specifically … but ever since I got to school, [I’ve] pretty consistently been involved in [environmental advocacy] and protective stuff like that … but I’ve been interested in all the environments for much longer,” Thompson said.
Thompson grew up in Coeur d’Alene, Idaho, with winters characterized by snowfall so deep she couldn’t see across the street. Thompson witnessed the environmental decline firsthand, as less snow fell year after year and summers became plagued by smoke so thick she couldn’t see well enough to drive.
Thompson appeared in court the following morning after spending the night in jail on Sept. 24, where the judge charged her with 3rd degree trespassing, a misdemeanor. Thompson will need to return to Phoenix, Arizona on Nov. 18 for her trial.
However, Thompson’s environmental advocacy doesn’t end when her trial does. For Thompson, this is a lifelong passion, and she plans to continue pursuing climate environmental advocacy.
